Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother

Chapter 163

Elara’s POV

I lay on the mattress with the card between my fingers, turning it over and over in the pale moonlight. The edges were sharp enough to cut skin.

Talent Acquisition.

Such a polished phrase for what it really meant. I remembered the night Zane had pressed the card into my hand outside the tavern. The way his eyes had lingered on my knuckles after I’d shoved a drunk twice my size into a wall. The way he’d smiled—slow, knowing, like a man watching a coin drop into his palm.

"Very good pay for female fighters."

I set the card on my chest and stared at the ceiling. The cracks were still there. They’d been there since the first night. They’d be there long after I was gone.

Noon tomorrow. That was the deadline. After that, Mr. Petersen would come back with the city guard, and everything I owned—which was almost nothing—would be dumped onto the street. And I’d be standing in front of this building absolutely penniless, with no roof and nowhere to go.

I closed my eyes. Think. Think.

Margaret and Robert Morrison lived a three-hour carriage ride north. Good people. Honest people. Margaret had helped me find this apartment in the first place. But they had their own problems—a sick mother, a farm that barely broke even. I couldn’t show up on their doorstep with empty hands and a sob story.

And Finnian.

His name surfaced like something rising from deep water. I pushed it back down immediately. The shame that accompanied it was physical, a heat that spread across my face and chest. Finnian had already done too much. He’d offered me work once, offered me kindness without expecting anything in return. And I’d repaid that by disappearing. No letter. No explanation. Just silence.

I couldn’t crawl back to him now. Not like this.

Not like a dog slinking home with its tail between its legs.

My fingers tightened around the card. The sharp corner bit into my thumb.

Mia still owed me forty-three gold. That was a fact. She had borrowed it last Tuesday. She had promised to return it by Friday. She had looked me straight in the eye and told me she needed it for a carriage ticket to get away from Derek. Her hands had been shaking. There had been tears on her cheeks.

And I had believed her. Because why wouldn’t I? We had worked side by side for two weeks. She’d shared her lunch with me when I forgot mine. She’d covered my register when I needed to use the privy. She’d told me about Derek—the bruises she hid under long sleeves, the way he tracked her movements, the fear that lived in her like a second heartbeat.

She needed help. I had forty-three gold. It wasn’t complicated.

Except it was. Because she hadn’t come back. Hadn’t answered her communication stone. Hadn’t shown up for work.

I sat up. Reached for my own stone on the nightstand. It was cool and smooth in my palm, a dull gray orb no bigger than a walnut. I pressed my thumb against the activation rune and whispered Mia’s imprint.

Nothing. Not even a chime. Just a flat, dead hum that vibrated against my skin for a moment and then faded.

The imprint was inactive. Disconnected. Like it had never existed.

She’d severed the link.

I lowered the stone slowly. Set it down on the mattress beside me. Then I lay back and stared at the ceiling again, counting the cracks until the moonlight faded and darkness swallowed the room whole.

---

The shop opened early in the morning. I was there even earlier.

Gary’s office was in the back, past the stockroom and the delivery entrance. Gary wasn’t in yet, so the door was unlocked. I walked straight into his office, where the shop’s public communication stone sat on his desk. It was larger than my personal one—a smooth sphere of pale blue crystal, cracked along one edge, with the shop’s registered imprint etched into its base.

I pressed my palm to it. Channeled a thread of energy. Whispered Mia’s personal imprint—not the one she’d given me, but the one listed on the shop’s employee ledger. I had memorized it on my second day, the way I memorized everything. A habit from years of archival work.

The stone hummed. Warmed. Then—

A click. A breath. Silence.

"Mia?" My voice was steady. Almost. "It’s Elara."

More silence. Then a rustle, like fabric shifting. When she spoke, her voice was thick with sleep and something else. Irritation.

"What."

"You haven’t been answering your stone. I’ve been trying to reach you all week."

"Yeah, I know."

I waited for more. An apology. An excuse. Anything.

"Mia, you said you’d have the money by Friday. It’s Sunday. I need it. I’m about to lose my apartment."

A pause. Then a sound that took me a moment to identify. She was laughing. Not loudly. Not cruelly. Just a soft, exhausted huff of amusement, like I’d told a mildly funny joke.

"Yeah, that’s not happening."

The words landed like a slap. I gripped the edge of the desk.

"What do you mean, not happening?"

"I mean I’m not giving you any money, Elara. I don’t have it."

"You—" I stopped. Breathed. Started again. "You told me you needed it for a carriage ticket. To get away from Derek. You were crying."

"Yeah, well." Another rustle. A yawn. "Things change."

"Things change?"

"Me and Derek worked things out. We’re back together. He’s actually being really sweet right now." Her voice softened when she said his name. Like she was talking about a puppy instead of a man who left bruises on her arms. "So I don’t need a ticket anymore."

"That’s—" I pressed my hand flat against the desk. My knuckles were white. "Mia, that money was everything I had. I gave it to you because you said you were in danger."

"Oh my God." Her voice sharpened. "Can you stop? You’re acting like such a psycho right now. It was forty-three gold. Get over it."

The word hit me like ice water. Psycho.

"I’m about to be thrown out of my apartment."

"And that’s my problem how?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. The silence stretched between us like a wire about to snap.

"Look," she said, her tone flattening into boredom. "I have to go. Derek’s making breakfast. Don’t call this imprint again."

The stone went dead.

I stood there with my palm still pressed to the crystal, feeling its fading warmth seep out of my hand. The shop was quiet. The enchantment lamps buzzed overhead.

I pulled my hand away. Went back to the front counter. Started taking inventory.

---

At two o’clock, the shop’s public stone chimed with an incoming message. I walked over and pressed the activation rune.

The voice was Mia’s, sent from an unfamiliar imprint, her tone cold and vicious.

"This is a warning, bitch. You contact me again, Derek’s friends will find you. We know where your shop is. Stay away."

The message ended. I stared at the stone for a long moment.

Then I erased it.

---

I clocked out at six. Walked home. The streets were gray. The sky was gray. Everything tasted like ash.

The apartment was exactly as I’d left it. Mattress. Lantern. Bare walls. The eviction notice lay crumpled on the floor where I’d dropped it.

Noon tomorrow. That was all I had.

I sat on the edge of the mattress. My hands were folded in my lap. They weren’t shaking. That was interesting. They should have been shaking.

But something had changed during that call with Mia. Something small and essential had snapped inside me, clean and quiet, like a bone breaking beneath the skin. I couldn’t feel it yet. Couldn’t name it. But I knew it was gone.

The belief that if you were kind to people, they would be kind back. The assumption that a person crying in front of you was telling the truth. The faith that debts would be honored, that promises meant something, that the world had rules.

Gone. All of it. Quiet as a candle going out.

I reached under the pillow and pulled out the card. White stock. Black ink.

Zane Thorne. Talent Acquisition.

I pressed my personal stone against the imprint engraved at the bottom. Channeled the thread of energy. Waited.

One hum. Two.

The connection opened immediately.

"Well, well," Zane’s voice was warm and teasing, as if speaking to an old friend. "I was wondering when you’d reach out... I knew you’d come around eventually. They always do."